Dressing in his sheriff’s uniform—jeans and a tan button-up—he pinned on his star before slipping his feet into his boots and grabbing a heavy coat. They were supposed to get upwards of two feet of snow before nightfall. So he and Ace were making sure there were no hikers, skiers, or snowmobilers on the trails.
Most days he loved his job. Others, where he had to tell people common sense things, he wished he could just leave them to their fate.
“I say, at least, seven folks still in the mountains,” Ace commented as Nick shut the door behind him.
“Nine,” he countered.
“Care to wager?” There was a gleam in Ace’s eyes that he didn’t trust.
“Such as?”
Triumph lit the other man’s face. “No more boozing until we find her.”
Her.
The her he was referring to was non-existent at the moment.
While Nick wasn’t a drunk, he liked a cold one on his front porch after a long day’s work of dealing with idiots.
They had waited for what seemed like forever to find the woman to complete them, and if he were honest, he didn’t think they would in Golden. Their hometown was surrounded by mountains with a population of less than four thousand people, more than half of which he’d grown up with. He wasn’t interested in the women he grew up with. He wanted someone who he would have the pleasure of learning their entire life’s story, and her, his.
“And what makes you think we’ll find her anytime soon?” He felt himself caving in. At thirty-four years old, he was ready to settle down, pop out a couple of kids, and go to bed with a warm, willing body every night.
“I can feel it.” Ace clapped his hands together, rubbing them as if he knew something.
“What you feel is the storm about to eat your balls alive if we don’t hurry the hell up.” Opening the back door of his SUV for Roxie to jump in, they both climbed in the front.
“There’s a buzzing in the air. Something’s happening soon,” Ace insisted.
Nick was still reticent. “You been in the States too long? Those American girls fry your brain?”
“Nah, man,” he answered back, glancing out the window as they drove towards Kicking Horse River.
Looking at Ace, Nick could see a touch of envy flash across his face. “What’s that look about?” He wanted to know what happened in Maryland that seemed to bring on this touch of melancholy.
“Nothing, man.”
“That wasn’t nothing. You went down there to help some girl, right? Did you fall for her and someone else get her? What?”
“Nothing like that.”
“Fucking talk to me, dude. What the hell is going through your head?” He was getting pissed now. Something was up his cousin’s ass.
Releasing a deep sigh, he finally answered. “I’m sick of being alone. I ain’t got anything waiting for me back in Texas, and it feels like I ain’t got nothing here neither.”
Nick was quiet after that. Ace had no family other than him and his dad; it was just the three of them left. Being the only children on either side, they had no siblings, and it was a huge reason as to why they were so close. Nick’s mom died of a brain aneurysm when he was twenty, and Ace’s parents died in a plane crash when he was sixteen, leaving him to live with Nick and his parents.
It hadn’t been easy, but they’d grown closer, taking their first woman together. As far as Nick knew, they had only ever shared women, never being with one by themselves. He knew that type of relationship dynamic worked for them, needing that bond of having a warm, supple body between them.
“Have you been with anyone?” Nick asked. He tried years ago, after Ace left, but found he couldn’t go through with it. Anxiety took hold, and he felt like a pussy. But it was what it was.
They pulled into the ravine just as Ace replied, “Tried to once, bitch went fucking stalker crazy.”
“Crazy how?” His interest was piqued.
“Two fucking dates, man. Two! I tell her it’s not gonna work and I gotta go away for work, and she gets fucking clingy.” Shaking his head, they climbed out of the SUV and grabbed their gear from the back. “So instead of being all sane-like, she moves her shit into my place! Who does that? Crazy fucking stalkers, that’s who.”
The sheer confusion in his cousin’s voice had Nick bowling over with laughter. “That’s what you get for trying without me, man. I told you we couldn’t.”